Shopping and Trading (1)
As I was chatting with my brother Martyn earlier this week, he reminded me of the variety of neighbourhood shops and businesses.
I have already mentioned Ford’s Tripe Factory, Packers’ Chocolate Factory and Bert Lucas the chimney sweep. And there were many more.
But up through the mid-fifties my mother was a great believer in the Cooperative movement.
This “leveling” movement began in Rochdale, Lancashire - it was a way for consumers to own the store so to speak.
When a person joined the Co-op, she or he was given a membership number which was to be used for every transaction. Twice a year members would be given a “dividend” ( e.g. "sixpence on the pound” based on their purchases during the previous six months.)
The idea, a good one, was that dividends would be paid to shoppers, and not to shareholders.
So we had bread and milk delivered each day by the Co-op; we bought furniture and clothing (still rationed) at the Co-op; used the Co-op Departmental Store on Castle Street, (one of only two big stores not demolished in the blitz, the other being the mediocre “British Home Stores“ ); and bought groceries at the Co-op.
A visit to the big Co-op would be an adventure. We would take the single decker 83 ‘bus to Carey’s Lane, and walk up Castle Street. Before the war it had been the downtown shopping area of Bristol, and Mum would regal us with tales of pre-war late night Saturday shopping. (Much later I heard similar tales of shopping on North Street, Pittsfield).
Castle Street was a wilderness of bombed out shops, sometimes with the engraved entrance stone still present - “Boots the Chemist”.
The Co-op was a magical place with huge lifts (elevators) with their shiny brass operating handles; x-ray machines to make sure that new shoes fitted well; the vacuum tubes through which payments would be made to an anonymous cashier; and the barbers’ shop where the old men would get their hair singed after it had been cut.
Just up the street was the “News Theatre” devoted of course to newsreels. Mum took us there one day to see some footage of the Silver Jubilee (I think the 25th wedding anniversary of King George VI and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon - a.k.a. The Queen Mother).
And there was the dreadful Government owned “British Restaurant” ( a war time institution to provide food for those whose homes had been bombed) - where one could buy awful meals at cheap prices.
Our local Co-op grocery store was across the street from my first school. There, men in white aprons would attend to us as we bought eggs, bacon (sliced there and then), butter cut off a block, tinned goods, flour, sugar, tea and the like (all still rationed “don’t forget the ration book!”). There payment would be made not through vacuum tubes, but with a spring loaded carrier which would travel overhead to the cashier’s office.
One of the store men was named Percy, and he would cut bits of cheese from a big wheel, using a wire, and give some to my sisters and to me, thus breaking the rationing rules.
Mum stopped using the Greenbank Road Co-op and began to use the one on Whitehall Road. Many years later I asked her why, and she told me that Percy had wanted to have an affair with her. Hence the free cheese!
When Mum joined the Plymouth Brethren we no longer traded at the Co-op. “Why”?
Well, to be a Co-op customer you needed a members’ number, and by gosh, that number might be related to the apocalypse. (See Revelation 13:16/17 - believe it or not, that’s what some Brethren believed).
So then we began to use local traders, and of that, more tomorrow.
I have already mentioned Ford’s Tripe Factory, Packers’ Chocolate Factory and Bert Lucas the chimney sweep. And there were many more.
But up through the mid-fifties my mother was a great believer in the Cooperative movement.
This “leveling” movement began in Rochdale, Lancashire - it was a way for consumers to own the store so to speak.
When a person joined the Co-op, she or he was given a membership number which was to be used for every transaction. Twice a year members would be given a “dividend” ( e.g. "sixpence on the pound” based on their purchases during the previous six months.)
The idea, a good one, was that dividends would be paid to shoppers, and not to shareholders.
So we had bread and milk delivered each day by the Co-op; we bought furniture and clothing (still rationed) at the Co-op; used the Co-op Departmental Store on Castle Street, (one of only two big stores not demolished in the blitz, the other being the mediocre “British Home Stores“ ); and bought groceries at the Co-op.
A visit to the big Co-op would be an adventure. We would take the single decker 83 ‘bus to Carey’s Lane, and walk up Castle Street. Before the war it had been the downtown shopping area of Bristol, and Mum would regal us with tales of pre-war late night Saturday shopping. (Much later I heard similar tales of shopping on North Street, Pittsfield).
Castle Street was a wilderness of bombed out shops, sometimes with the engraved entrance stone still present - “Boots the Chemist”.
The Co-op was a magical place with huge lifts (elevators) with their shiny brass operating handles; x-ray machines to make sure that new shoes fitted well; the vacuum tubes through which payments would be made to an anonymous cashier; and the barbers’ shop where the old men would get their hair singed after it had been cut.
Just up the street was the “News Theatre” devoted of course to newsreels. Mum took us there one day to see some footage of the Silver Jubilee (I think the 25th wedding anniversary of King George VI and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon - a.k.a. The Queen Mother).
And there was the dreadful Government owned “British Restaurant” ( a war time institution to provide food for those whose homes had been bombed) - where one could buy awful meals at cheap prices.
Our local Co-op grocery store was across the street from my first school. There, men in white aprons would attend to us as we bought eggs, bacon (sliced there and then), butter cut off a block, tinned goods, flour, sugar, tea and the like (all still rationed “don’t forget the ration book!”). There payment would be made not through vacuum tubes, but with a spring loaded carrier which would travel overhead to the cashier’s office.
One of the store men was named Percy, and he would cut bits of cheese from a big wheel, using a wire, and give some to my sisters and to me, thus breaking the rationing rules.
Mum stopped using the Greenbank Road Co-op and began to use the one on Whitehall Road. Many years later I asked her why, and she told me that Percy had wanted to have an affair with her. Hence the free cheese!
When Mum joined the Plymouth Brethren we no longer traded at the Co-op. “Why”?
Well, to be a Co-op customer you needed a members’ number, and by gosh, that number might be related to the apocalypse. (See Revelation 13:16/17 - believe it or not, that’s what some Brethren believed).
So then we began to use local traders, and of that, more tomorrow.
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